Artist saw 'magic ... in everyday things'

Norman Miller Daily News Staff @Norman_MillerMW

Thursday

Nov 9, 2017 at 9:39 AMNov 13, 2017 at 11:25 AM

WESTON – David Lang saw beauty where others just saw the mundane.

“The thing that I loved about David was that he was remarkably imaginative and curious,” said the Rev. Stephanie May of the First Parish in Wayland. “He would take a photo of something that you would never even notice and it would be beautiful. He taught people to see the magic and extraordinary in everyday things. He was always looking for beauty, whether it was in a person or a doorknob and bird’s nest.”

Lang died early Wednesday evening when a deer went through the windshield of his minivan.

Authorities say a car was traveling on Wellesley Street near Newton Street when it struck an adult male deer at 5:25 p.m. The deer was propelled through the air into the path of Lang's oncoming minivan. The deer crashed through the windshield and struck Lang. Lang was taken to Newton Wellesley Hospital where he died, authorities said.

For 30 years, Lang, who is survived by his wife Kathleen, taught art, chaired the art department and directed the art gallery at the Middlesex School in Concord. He retired in 2003.

He had planned to spend part of his retirement in a cottage he bought in rural Ireland making art when he had a stroke in 2004 that inhibited his movements and fogged some of his thought processes.

As therapy, Lang began constructing sculptures by fashioning scraps of wire and metal into complex works that helped him recover his manual dexterity.

He evolved from a somewhat traditional painter to a genre-busting sculptor. He started building complex pieces by hand in his Natick studio that resembled wheeled, wire wagons generally topped by some curious arrangement of “found objects,” such as radio tubes, gutter spouts or toy flying pigs.

In addition to being an art teacher, Lang was also a flight instructor, a watercolorist and builder of high-performance sports cars.

Lang described his sculptures as “accidentally profound.”

“I try to remember to look at things the way my grandchildren do,” he said in a 2011 interview with the Daily News. “You never know when and whether things are going to come together. Kids understand that everything connects to everything else.”

Lang’s artwork was popular with children because of his imagination, May said.

“His artwork was about taking the ordinary and making it into something beautiful,” she said. “David was a remarkable man and loved by many. It’s a tough day.”

Weston Town Crier Editor Michael Wyner contributed to this report.

Norman Miller can be reached at 508-626-3823 or nmiller@wickedlocal.com. For up-to-date crime news, follow Norman Miller on Twitter @Norman_MillerMW or on Facebook at facebook.com/NormanMillerCrime.